Futility . . . This world, I hear you saying,-- With lifted chin, and arm in outflung gesture, Coldly imperious,--this transient world, What has it then to give, if not containing Deep hints of nobler worlds? We know its beauties,-- Momentary and trivial for the most part, Perceived through flesh, passing like flesh away,-- And know how much outweighed they are by darkness. We are like searchers in a house of darkness, A house of dust; we creep with little lanterns, Throwing our tremulous arcs of light at random, Now here, now there, seeing a plane, an angle, An edge, a curve, a wall, a broken stairway Leading to who knows what; but never seeing The whole at once . . . We grope our way a little, And then grow tired. No matter what we touch, Dust is the answer--dust: dust everywhere. If this were all--what were the use, you ask? But this is not: for why should we be seeking, Why should we bring this need to seek for beauty, To lift our minds, if there were only dust? This is the central chamber you have come to: Turning your back to the world, until you came To this deep room, and looked through rose-stained windows, And saw the hues of the world so sweetly changed. Well, in a measure, so only do we all. I am not sure that you can be refuted. At the very last we all put faith in something,-- You in this ghost that animates your world, This ethical ghost,--and I, you'll say, in reason,-- Or sensuous beauty,--or in my secret self . . . Though as for that you put your faith in these, As much as I do--and then, forsaking reason,-- Ascending, you would say, to intuition,-- You predicate this ghost of yours, as well. Of course, you might have argued,--and you should have,-- That no such deep appearance of design Could shape our world without entailing purpose: For can design exist without a purpose? Without conceiving mind? . . . We are like children Who find, upon the sands, beside a sea, Strange patterns drawn,--circles, arcs, ellipses, Moulded in sand . . . Who put them there, we wonder?